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Transcript

Notes

G.N. Lepeshkin: Then this is what happened: under that agreement we were supposed to build a production line at our plant for medications in tablet form. For a firm called Allen.

Slava Paperno: Their part was, after...

Lepeshkin: Their part was, you know, to help us in financing this. The project cost $3.2 million. They were supposed to supply us with equipment, and we were supposed to provide them with floor space for production. Well, this dragged on for a very long time. The firm supplied us with equipment that was twenty or thirty years old and had been used somewhere like Brazil, or somewhere else. In short, the firm cheated us. The project was a flop.

Paperno: Did that ruin your impression and your attitude toward working with Americans?

Lepeshkin: No, people everywhere can be all kinds. That money was allocated by the U.S. government to that team, the Allen team, which was supposed to purchase equipment and deliver it to us. But they took some of that money for their business plan development and so on. In short, they pulled a fast one. On both the U.S. government and us.